NCR Corporation has developed, and continues to develop and improve, data warehouse solutions and applications for numerous industries such as the Communications, Travel and Transportation, Retail, E-Business, Financial Services and Insurance, and Manufacturing industries.
The Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) has proved a strategic weapon for most modern organizations. It should be active, dynamic and flexible in order to cope with changing business requirements. It should provide a strategic background to support changing business relationships.
The foundation of the enterprise data warehouse is a comprehensive and responsive logical data model addressing challenges in the near future without compromising existing business processes. A logical data model is a graphical representation of the way data is organized in a data warehouse environment. The logical data model specifically defines which individual data elements can be stored and how they relate to one another to provide a model of the business information. The data model ultimately defines which business questions can be answered from the data warehouse and thus determines the business value of the entire decision support system.
A properly designed LDM provides a foundation for more effective sales, marketing, and customer management; and supports customer relationship management (CRM) requirements related to identifying, acquiring, retaining and growing valuable customers. A logical data model reflects the operating principles and policies of a business and provides the underlying structure for the data imported into the data warehouse, in the following ways:                It serves as a road map for achieving data integration in an organization. It is a guide for development over the long term.        It provides a neutral cross-functional view, not Accounting's view or Marketing's view.        It shows interlocking parts. Expanding the model for future enhancements is a lot easier if you understand all the interdependent parts.        It is a foundation upon which to build applications or business views.        It is a tool that allows an organization to recognize and control data redundancy. Data redundancy can lead to inaccurate and inconsistent reporting of business information.        It allows an organization to see relationships between data elements.        It is the starting point for developing a physical database design.        It aids the communication between an analyst and the business user.        It is a rigorous technique that imposes discipline on the warehouse development process and leads to the development of stable, robust, long term and reliable solutions.        A model is a communication tool—it allows an organization to understand their data warehouse, prior to, during and after implementation.        
Different industries have different information requirements, data sources, data uses and accordingly, data warehouse requirements. Each industry data warehouse solution is constructed in accordance with a different logical data model. Even within the same industry, different customer requirements will result in different logical data model structures.
As stated earlier, NCR Corporation has developed data warehouse solutions and applications for numerous industries. Logical data models for several of these data warehouse solutions are described in the following patent applications:
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/838,101, filed on Feb. 14, 2001, describes a logical data model for the Communications industry. The application, titled “LOGICAL DATA MODEL FOR COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT,” is incorporated herein by reference.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/921,566, filed on Aug. 6, 2001, describes a logical data model for the Airline industry. The application, titled “COMPUTER IMPLEMENTED CUSTOMER VALUE MODEL IN AIRLINE INDUSTRY,” is incorporated herein by reference.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/990,539, filed on Nov. 16, 2001, describes a logical data model for the E-Business industry. The application, titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CAPTURING AND STORING INFORMATION CONCERNING WEB VISITOR BROWSING ACTIVITIES IN A DATA WAREHOUSE,” is incorporated herein by reference.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/017,146, filed on Dec. 14, 2001, describes a logical data model for the Retail industry. The application, titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CAPTURING AND STORING INFORMATION CONCERNING RETAIL STORE OPERATIONS,” is incorporated herein by reference.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/027,967, filed on Dec. 21, 2001, describes a logical data model for the Travel and Transportation industry. The application, titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CAPTURING AND STORING BUSINESS INFORMATION FOR THE TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTION INDUSTRIES,” is incorporated herein by reference.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/190,099, filed on Jul. 3, 2002, describes a logical data model for the Financial industry. The application, titled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CAPTURING AND STORING FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT INFORMATION,” is incorporated herein by reference.
As apparent from a review of the above referenced logical data models, the development and modification of logical data models requires extensive business knowledge, customer collaboration, and use of development resources. A method for simplifying and improving logical data model development and reducing the amount of time and resources required in the development process is desired.